And always he thought of her as something of the summer. The rich decays of autumn came, the Chelsea roads were littered with variegated leaves that were presently wet and dirty and slippery, the twilight crept down into the day towards five o'clock and four, but in his memory of her the leaves were green, the evenings were long, the warm quiet of rural Surrey in high August filled the air. So that it was with a kind of amazement he found her in London and in November close at hand. He was called to the college telephone one day from a conversation with a proposed research student. It was a middle-aged woman bachelor anxious for the D.Sc., who wished to occupy the further bench in the laboratory; but she had no mental fire, and his mind was busy with excuses and discouragements.
He had no thought of Marjorie when she answered, and for an instant he did not recognize her voice.
"Yes, I'm Mr. Trafford."...
"Who is it?" he reiterated with a note of irascibility. "Who?"
The little voice laughed. "Why! I'm Marjorie!" it said.
Then she was back in his life like a lantern suddenly become visible in a wood at midnight.
It was like meeting her as a china figure, neat and perfect and two inches high. It was her voice, very clear and very bright, and quite characteristic, as though he was hearing it through the wrong end of a telescope. It was her voice, clear as a bell; confident without a shadow.
"It's me! Marjorie! I'm twenty-one to-day!"
It was like a little arrow of exquisite light shot into the very heart of his life.
He laughed back. "Are you for meeting me then, Marjorie?"